The Joys of Being a Teenager
by Sand-wolf579
Summary: It's been four years since the battle with Tempus and a lot has changed. Charlie has a problem, one that nobody else seems to know, nor care about. When Jade finally find's out about Charlie's secret will she be able to help him?
1. Chapter 1

**Hello again readers. This story doesn't have any demons or magic in it, it's just a shorter story with some bonding between Jade and Charlie. For some reason I'm worried about it being OOC, but I know it won't be, because I've kinda been building up to this for a while, so I shouldn't worry about it.**

**Anyways, I don't own Jackie Chan Adventures, so onward with the story.**

It had been four years since the whole thing with Tempus and Dylen and all the other demon things that were going on, and a lot had changed. Things had sort of toned down after that battle. Dylen, his dad, and older Jade had returned to their own time a few days after things had calmed down.

Everybody else…well, they didn't exactly stick around. Just two days after the battle with Tempus, Frank headed to the demon school in Europe to learn how to control his powers. And about a month later Salv started going to the same school. Most of the demon sorcerer's kids had run off somewhere.

Gill had left the country to go live somewhere hot and dry where there weren't so many people. He may be an ice demon, but he still hates the cold. Monkane and Fare also left the country, to be somewhere with more wildlife and less buildings and pollution. Spark and joined Drago and his crew, and they weren't sticking around San Fran anymore, they were going wherever they felt like.

Sparrow stuck around for a bit, but she wasn't as happy as she was before. It was obvious to everyone but her that she missed Frank. Then one day she and Seymour had this big fight. Sparrow had asked her dad about her mom, and he answered her the same way he always did, with no real answers, and Sparrow didn't like this. She and Seymour yelled at each other for a bit before Sparrow started crying and had flown off to who knows where. No one had seen her since she'd left.

Kaze, though, stuck around. Mostly so she could visit her boyfriend easily. Jikan had started living with his father, Tempus (Who was living like a normal human now, even though he was still a demon) Seymour was also living with them. They lived in an apartment that was a bit of a distance from where Jade and Charlie lived, but Seymour still went to the same school as they did.

Once the three of them started high school though, the craziest thing happened. Nobody saw this coming, but all of the guys at school were pretty obsessed with Jade. She wasn't overly sensitive, she was smart, but not a nerd, and she could play sports with the best of them. A lot of the guys liked the girl who was one of the guys, but still had a nice figure. At first Jade scoffed at and ignored the boys, but she is still a girl, and she did think that some of the boys who asked her out were cute or nice, so she actually started dating.

Charlie wasn't very happy about this, he wasn't happy about a lot of things, but Jade's dating habits least of all. Charlie was dying to ask Jade out, but he didn't want to be one of those obsessed guys (even though he was the first who was obsessing over her) and she always seemed to already have a boyfriend, or she was getting over the fact that she didn't have a boyfriend anymore. It just never seemed like the right time.

So Charlie just continued being friends with Jade, but Charlie had a habit of distancing himself from her a bit when she had a boyfriend, which wasn't all the time, but often enough. Charlie instead devoted his time and energy to his art. He stopped paying attention in classes altogether and just focused on drawing, but he never showed anybody what he drew.

If there was one thing that Charlie did a lot besides drawing it would be fighting. He seemed to always be getting into fights with the guys at school and he'd been suspended more times then he cared to say. Jade didn't mind the fact that Charlie got in trouble at school, if anything she was glad to have a friend who got in even more trouble then she did. But even Jade didn't know just how much trouble Charlie was in.

**Okay so that chapter was a bit different, and short, but it was more of a prologue to say what's happened between this story and the last one, that all. In this story we finally get to learn Charlie's dark secret, which, now that I think about it may not be as dark as Frank's is, but I do think that it's more dangerous, so, yeah. I will have the next chapter up when I have it up, and the writing style will be back to normal in the future.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay, let's get this actual story going, with more teenagerness. Sounds like fun, so let's get started.**

School was, for lack of a more original way of saying it, boring. Charlie had just started going back to school after two weeks of suspension and he almost wished he could be suspended again just so he wouldn't have to come to school for another few weeks. But Charlie was determined to not get into trouble and get suspended again for at least a few weeks. So instead of getting into fights, he decided to draw throughout math class. Charlie was quite skilled at making it look like he was doing work while actually not, but some teachers were skilled at actually noticing.

"Charlie, I think it would be easier to pass this class if you just tried to do some of the work." Their math teacher says. Charlie looks up and sees the teacher standing right by his desk, he hadn't noticed her there at all. Charlie rolled his eyes, closed his sketchbook, and handed it to her.

"Thank you, you can come and get this back after school." She says. She then walks back to the front of the class and continues the lesson. Charlie took his pencil and doodled on the math worksheet for the rest of the class.

"You know, you were bound to be caught one of these days," Jade says to Charlie as they made their way to gym class. "You've been drawing in every class, every day, for the past three years. Just how many drawings can you fit in one book?"

"I have multiple sketchbooks, Jade," Charlie explains, "And I usually work on one picture for days at a time."

"You are weird," Jade says.

"Yes, so you told me yesterday." Charlie says with a grin. By this time they had gotten to the gym. The two of them joined Seymour and other kids in their class by the bleachers.

"Hey, demon boy, how were things in history?" Jade asks Seymour.

"Dull, it's history, what else would it be?" was Seymour's reply. Just then the sound of loud and arrogant teenage boys filled the gym. Jade shifted uncomfortably and refused to look up from the floor while Charlie just glared at the five jocks that had just entered the room. Their reactions were normal, because the loudest and most arrogant of the boys was Alex, star of the basketball team, and Jade's old boyfriend until he dumped her three days before. And clinging to him like her life depended on it was beautiful girl who paid even less attention in school then Charlie did.

"Alright kids, today we're separating, boys on this side of the gym, girls over there, let's go." The coach says, starting the class. Alex and his girl kissed for a good while before the beautiful idiot finally moved over to join the rest of the girls in whatever they were doing. Once the girls were out of earshot one of Alex's lackey's turned to him.

"I thought that girl was going out with someone else," he said

"Oh, she was, but I won her back," Alex says, quiet enough so the girls wouln't hear, but loud enough that Seymour and Charlie heard every word.

"How'd you do that?" another jock asks.

"There's one surefire way to get a girl, and that is jealousy." Alex says, "Girl's are so possessive of their guys, whether they're dating them or not. She's definitely into me, so I went out with another girl, made her jealous, she comes crawling back to me. It worked like a charm. Sure, it took more then a month of going out with Jade to make her jealous, but it still worked."

Charlie was shaking with anger now, the only reason he hadn't gone to beat that moron up was that Seymour was holding him back, and he was much stronger then you'd think.

"Wait, you were only going out with Jade to make your girl jealous?" one of the jocks asked, as he was still completely in the dark. Boy, was this guy slow on the uptake.

"Of course I was, do you really think I'd seriously have that idiot Chan girl as my girlfriend?" Alex says, cocky as ever. Seymour couldn't hold Charlie back any longer, and, to be honest, he didn't want to. Charlie ran forward and, before Alex could see it coming, punched him in the jaw hard enough to knock the jerk to the floor.

There was a stunned silence for a minute before Alex's gang and Seymour all jumped into the fight too. It was a while before the coach (who had been helping the girls with something) finally noticed that half the guys were having a fight to the death and went to stop it.

"Stop this, now!" the coach says once he finally manages to keep the boys from killing each other, "All of you are coming with me to the office, now!" The boys followed the coach to the office, glaring everything as they went.

"Sorry to get you caught up in this." Charlie says to Seymour.

"It's no problem," Seymour shrugs, "and believe me, I wanted to punch that guy in the face as much as you did."

Charlie goes back to glaring at the wall. Great, he thinks, so much for staying in school for a few weeks. Charlie then groans aloud when he realizes that the school's probably going to call their parents or, in Charlie's case, brother. Ephraim, Charlie's brother, had plans to spend the day with his girlfriend today. He wouldn't be happy at all to have to interrupt that date because Charlie couldn't keep himself out of trouble. Ephraim rarely got angry, but when he did…

Great, could things get any better?

**Look, did you see that? It's a miracle I tell you, I actually updated this story…after three weeks. It feels like forever, and I feel so bad. I was just hesitant to write because, as I said, I'm a little paranoid about it being out of character. I just need to try not to think about it and just write it, sounds like a good plan, I shall try it.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Okay, I'm not sure where I'm going to stop this chapter, so I'll just write until the chapter gets to average length for my chapters.**

**And if anyone actually thinks I own Jackie Chan Adventures, get the idea out of your head now, because I don't.**

Gym was the last class of the day, so when it ended Jade headed straight for the office to find where Seymour and Charlie had gotten to. Even if Gym wasn't the last class Jade would probably go to the office to find them anyways. She had to make sure that they were okay, because seriously, two boys against five jocks? That was basically the definition of unfair.

Jade found Seymour sitting outside the office. He had a bruise here or there, but looked okay. Jade suspected that Charlie probably looked worse, because it had been him doing most of the fighting. Jade sits down by Seymour.

"Where's Charlie?" Jade asks. Seymour nods to the office.

"Still in there with his brother, talking to the councilor, or the principal, or whoever it is." Seymour says, "Everyone else already left with just a short talking to, so Charlie's the only one in serious trouble."

"Why? It wasn't just his fault." Jade says.

"Maybe not, but he was the one who started throwing the punches. But I blame Alex for that, even I felt like punching him in the jaw." Seymour says.

"Yeah, Alex has that affect on people," Jade mutters, she turns back to Seymour and says "Why did you stay though? I mean, you're not in too much trouble, so why stay?"

"I don't know," Seymour admits with a shrug, "I guess I sort of want to just show Charlie that I am here for him." Seymour leans closer to Jade and whispers "Between you and me, I think Charlie may have some abandonment issues."

"What are you talking about?" Jade asks.

"Well, think about it. His parents got lost at sea when he was younger, then his best friend up and leaves to Europe. Frank didn't even tell Charlie before he left, remember?" Seymour says, still keeping his voice low.

Jade did remember, Frank had left two days after the battle with Tempus, and Charlie hadn't even woken up until four days after the battle. Jade remembers mostly because Frank had been kind enough of giving her the job of telling Charlie where he'd gone. As expected, Charlie hadn't reacted well to the news at all, but that didn't mean that he had abandonment issues. Jade wanted to argue with Seymour about this, but really, what good would it do? He could be just as stubborn as she was sometimes, so Jade just let it be.

"Whatever," Jade says, "I'm going to go get Charlie's sketchbook, I'll be back in a few minutes." And without waiting for a response, she heads back to her math classroom. When Jade enters the room she finds her teacher there, just doing some paper work.

"Um, hey," Jade says to get her attention. The teacher looks up from her work at Jade and grabs Charlie's sketchbook to give to her.

"See if you can get Charlie to pay attention more," She says as the hands the sketchbook over, "I'd really rather not have to send Charlie to the office any more then he already is."

"I'll try," Jade says, though she wasn't planning on doing so. If Charlie didn't want to do math or any other kind of school work, that was his business. Jade runs back down the hallways back to the office. She figured out why schools have the 'no running in the halls' rule when she ran right into Charlie, knocking them both to the ground.

"Ow, oh, hey Jade." Charlie says very casually, "I was wondering where you were."

"What do you mean you were wondering where I was?" Jade asks, "You know that I was in class up until five minutes ago."

"True," Charlie admits with a shrug. The two of them just sat there on the floor for a minute in silence until Jade couldn't stand it, she hated awkward silence, which was any silence at all.

"So," Jade says, to get the conversation going again, "is the sea of lectures over yet?"

"Not even close," Charlie sighs, "Maybe from the school it is, but I'm positive that Ephraim's just getting warmed up."

"Speaking of your brother, where is he?" Jade asks, looking around the halls, as if he'd just be standing there.

"Oh, the councilor wanted to talk to him alone for a minute, but he'll be out soon." Charlie says. Charlie had only just said it when Ephraim came out of the office, and he looked mad.

"Come on Charlie, we're going now." Was all Ephraim needed to say. Charlie sighed and stood up, then turned to help Jade to her feet.

"I'll see you later, Jade." Charlie says before he goes and follows his brother out of the school. Jade watches Charlie go with a feeling that she'd forgotten something. Then out of the corner of her eyes Jade saw a sketchbook…Charlie's sketchbook, it must've fallen out of her hands when she'd ran into Charlie. Jade hit her head with her hand, she'd completely forgotten to give Charlie his sketchbook back.

Jade goes over to pick up the sketchbook but notices that it had fallen open. Jade hesitates, she knew that this sketchbook was more like a journal, that all of Charlie's personal thoughts were in it, but she couldn't resist the curiosity to see what's inside. Jade picks up the book, sits back down on the ground, and opens it up from the beginning.

The first few pictures were nothing out of the ordinary, just drawings, but then Jade found a drawing of Frank, except, it wasn't him. Frank looked like he was Shendu, so he was in demon mode. And for whatever reason he was wielding a sword. Something really weird about the drawing was that most of it was just black and white, but the tip of the sword had been colored in with red. Jade looked at this picture for a minute before moving on.

The next pictures were of the demon kids, in the order that they'd met them. The strange thing was that all the pictures were drawn so that you couldn't even tell the kids were demons at all, they all looked like normal people, even Fare. Even weirder was that one picture was of a teenage guy who looked like just any guy off the street, it took Jade a minute to realize that this was a non dragon version of Drago.

After looking for a while Jade realized that these weren't individual pictures, they were telling a story. Jade was still confused though, most of the drawings were normal black and white, but some did have red in them. Jade decided to take another look at the drawings with red in them to see if she could find a pattern or reasoning behind it.

The first was the drawing of Frank with the sword, the sword tipped red. There was another picture of Shendu Frank, just standing there looking smug, his eyes were red and his hands were dripping something red too. There was also a drawing of Dylen and Frank, with Dylen's hair colored red. Another picture of Frank (Shocker, I know) and a few others. But one drawing that stood out to Jade was of her and Alex, kissing. Jade didn't like this picture, and apparently neither did Charlie, because it was sloppily drawn, even Jade could see that. Alex had what looked like a knife in his pocket, which confused Jade because Alex didn't carry knives around everywhere.

Suddenly Jade found a connection between the drawings. When those things had actually happened Charlie had been in a very bad mood, he'd seemed angrier and more depressed then he usually was. Jade closed the sketchbook, something was wrong, she knew it, she just didn't know for sure what it was...wait a minute.

Jade stood up quickly and ran outside. She had an idea what was going on, but she didn't like it, at all. Fear was an emotion that Jade didn't feel very much, but she had to admit that she was afraid right now. Jade started running toward Charlie's apartment building, hoping that he was there and his brother wasn't. Jade needed to talk to Charlie, alone, to find out if her idea was true or not.

Jade just hoped that she wasn't.

**Okay, there's no going back from here, we are now past the point of no return, so I can't change my mind on the plot now. Agh, I feel like Charlie's sketchbook is way too obvious, but then again, it is basically a journal, and journals are very obvious on what is going on in people's heads. Charlie wasn't ever expecting anyone to read it, so it's fine.**


End file.
